What the night sky looks like over Lowell, MA

Satellite radiance puts Lowell in the urban band. Sky glow overhead most nights. Typically only planets, the Moon, and a handful of the brightest stars are visible. Only 89.2% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Lowell.

The number comes from orbit, not a stargazer's logbook, so treat it as an estimate of sky glow rather than a certified Bortle class.

How far Lowell is from a meaningfully darker sky

10 miles from Lowell, straight-line, sits Methuen, MA, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Lowell's own urban band.

Methuen, MA is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.

Lowell against the rest of the dataset

About 120,418 people live in Lowell, MA, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. Among all 3,206 cities here, Lowell ranks 2,843 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured.